"This book is the way I say "You didn't break me", it's the way I look fear in the eye and tell it, 'I did what you said I couldn't, I did it, and I did it loud"

From it's very first lines, I knew I was going to like letters to the person I was. And it was the case. I fell in love with Sana's writing!
As a lover of words, I must say that I was impressed by the broad subjects she deals with in Letters to the person I was.
It is smart, beautifully writtend, and most of all: so true. The drawing are adding another dimension, more powerful to the poems.
The only thing I regret is the font: it is really uncomfortable to read!

It's hard to put into words what this was like to read. Heartbreaking and healing. That last section of poetry was so good.

There's a trend in poetry right now to produce volumes like this, in the same vein of Rupi Kaur or Amanda Lovelace, with intensely personal poem, introspective, reflective, and not terribly structured. These volumes usually come in 3-4 parts, trying to map a journey (but don't always succeed). Sana Abuleil fits within this tradition, including the specific conceit of telling things to her younger self and adding little doodles throughout. Even though Kaur and Lovelace tends to have more gutpunches, I give Abuleil more credit because she doesn't write what I would consider poem "fragments" aka, small lines that are somewhat meaningful but divorced from a fully fleshed out poem.

Her poems are complete (though most are about a page, some longer or shorter), and she puts in more effort to affect poetics in her verse. There are a few very affecting lines, and some interesting extended metaphors (ex. a rubix cube in only black and white). However, a lot of the poems tend to blend together for lack of detail. (She even suggests she knows this in the beginning of one poem, that they are all starting to blur together for her.) I would like for her to draw out the situations more, make them more memorable and graspable. Granted, her audience is presumably herself, but it is also her readers as well. That said, some of the poems toward the end of The Understanding (third section) and a few dated from 2016 stand out as much stronger and bolder.

I think there's a tendancy when you begin writing poetry to let the language hide things you aren't comfortable talking about yet. Furthermore, in this genre of poetry volume, you sort of get an effect of someone writing a diary they don't really want others to read. I'd like to see what her next volume looks like as she grows as a poet. In that she's also an academic (I googled her), there's always that sense of being caught between your self-expression and your presumed employability. I can't say for sure that's related, but it might be.

However, for what this volume is, and the style it is done in, I would recommend this volume to anyone who has enjoyed Kaur and Lovelace and the like, because that's exactly the niche Abuleil is publishing in. In particular, if you have a teenage girl in your life who is learning to love poetry, you might consider this for her.

You can feel the pain in this poetry collection. You can feel the humanness and the pain of being alive. It’s like Sana Abuleil has let her skin bleed bare and opens. There is bravery and connection in this openness. It is years and their feelings written out on a page. It is healing. The drawings are beautiful and charming, and they reflect the flashes of images shown in this reading process. If you want to be plunged into the pain of the past and the joy of the future, read this.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this.

For some reason the ebook version has multiple of the same page, but other than that I loved it. I think there always things we wish we could tell our younger selfs.

Abuleil's way with words affected me deeply. I'm usually not that into poetry, but I really connected with quite a few of her poems. You can feel that what Abuleil writes about is deeply rooted in herself, and this vulnerability she's showing in her art is touching!